Enjoy pony rides, games, crafts and more at Sunday’s Harvest Festival in Morristown

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St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Morristown will host a free Fall Harvest Festival featuring pony rides, face painting, bulb planting and more from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Sunday.

The ponies will be back at St. Peter's on Sunday for the church's second Fall Harvest Festival. Sharon Sheridan photo

Volunteers from 4-H will be on hand with animals for visitors to meet and learn about, including rabbits, Seeing Eye puppies and reptiles. Children can test their skills at games such as gourd hockey, pumpkin bowling and a beanbag toss. They can express their creativity at the crafts table, painting miniature pumpkins and tackling other artistic projects.

In the garden, kids can plant daffodil bulbs. Those looking for a little bling can get a temporary tattoo and visit the face painters. And when festival-goers get hungry, they can decorate cookies and enjoy other snacks, including healthy  treats from Chef Melody of The Main Event.

The festival culminates the church school’s Creation Season curriculum at St. Peter’s.

Children will plant bulbs as part of the Fall Harvest Festival celebrating the culmination of the Creation Season at St. Peter's. Sharon Sheridan photo

So besides providing a fun community event, it carries a serious message, said the Rev. Melissa Hall, assistant rector and director of children’s and youth programs at the church.

“We are in a point in time when we are grateful for all the gifts of Creation that we are given. We are also aware of our responsibility in maintaining those gifts of Creation,” she said. Entering a time of national bounty and thanksgiving, she said, she hopes “that it makes us aware that there are those in the world who don’t benefit from the bounty of Creation.

“We have to be good stewards of what we are given,” she said. And that means taking care of both the earth and “our brothers and sisters in need.”

Other church school activities this fall included planting a children’s garden, a “water brigade” to learn what it’s like for people who have to travel long distances to get water, a blessing of the animals in honor of St. Francis of Assisi and a slide show by Sister Mary Lynne Pfitzinger of the Episcopal Community of St. John Baptist in Mendham about the Good Shepherd Home for AIDS orphans in Cameroon.

Youngsters from St. Peter's Episcopal Church raise funds for the Community Soup Kitchen on Oct. 21. Sharon Sheridan photo

On Sunday morning, fourth- through eighth-graders raised about $150 in donations for the Morristown Community Soup Kitchen. Later, members of the youth group were among the 925 participants in the annual Hunger Walk to benefit the kitchen.

The Fall Harvest Festival will be held rain or shine. Organizers do hope to avoid a repeat of last year’s unexpected snowstorm, which postponed the church’s inaugural Fall Harvest Festival by two weeks and cancelled the youth group’s Halloween haunted house altogether.

 

 

 

 

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